122 



THE ELEPHANT 



symmetry. In some species they were straight columns 

 of ivory turning up at the tips. Some had three tusks ; 

 others had two in the upper jaw and one in the lower, the 

 latter generally small though sometimes large and power- 

 ful. These tusks gave to the owner an armament un- 

 equaled among animals; in fact, the mastodon must have 



Fig. 103. —The Mastodon. 



been the terror of the ancient world. The Big Bone Lick 

 of Kentucky has been a prolific source of discovery, and 

 a splendid skeleton of the mastodon was found at Cohoes, 

 New York, the skeleton being packed in a pothole, show- 

 ing that the animal had been swept downstream and 

 washed into the hole. This specimen, mounted in the 

 New York State museum, is twenty feet in length, 



